


Today's Special: Torture

by watcherofworlds



Series: Whumptober 2020 [32]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Prompt Fill, Scars, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27374254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: Prompt fill for Whumptober Day 31 "Today's Special: Torture"
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: Whumptober 2020 [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956160
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Today's Special: Torture

“You were  _ whipped?! _ ” The words slipped free before Felicity could stop them, the realization of what had left the crosshatching of long, thin scars on the back of Oliver’s right shoulder suddenly computing in her brain. Oliver made a sound like a frustrated growl low in his throat and grabbed his shirt, yanking it over his head in a single sharp motion and obscuring his scars- all of them- from view. He turned to face Felicity then, his brilliant blue gaze sharp and piercing as an arrowhead, pinning her in place.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, eyes downcast, twisting her fingers together anxiously in her lap. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but… it just slipped out.”

“Why?” Oliver asked, his voice hoarse with an emotion Felicity couldn’t name. “You’ve never shown any interest in them before.” The ‘them’ in this case being his scars, Felicity assumed.

“I didn’t know you…before,” she said. “So to me, they’ve always just been a-a part of you. An aspect of your appearance, like your height or the color of your eyes, and nothing more. But the marks on your back… it just now registered in my brain what those are, what would have left marks like those, and you being whipped… that’s deliberate. Someone did that to you. They wanted to hurt you, and they wanted to do it in the most brutal, barbaric way possible. And in my shock, I guess my empathy overrode my good sense. I’m sorry.” Silence, fraught with tension, stretched between them.

“I’m sorry, Felicity,” Oliver finally said, voice soft.

“For what?” Felicity asked, not quite able to meet his eyes. “I’m the one who opened my mouth when I shouldn’t have.”

“But I’m the one who overreacted,” Oliver said.

“You didn’t-” Felicity started to protest.

“Yes, I did,” Oliver interjected gently. “And I’m sorry. People seem to have a very particular reaction to my scars, and it almost always involves them expecting me to relive my trauma to satisfy their morbid curiosity. The way you reacted to the lash marks… I thought that was about to happen again, and from the last person I would have ever expected, and I just… reacted. I’m sorry.” Idly, Felicity wondered exactly how many times he was going to apologize to her over the course of this conversation, especially given the fact that she still felt like she was the one who should have been apologizing to  _ him _ .

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she told him, speaking in a murmur. “I know you don’t want to have to relive the trauma that you went through, and I’m not asking you to. I would never ask you to. But if you feel like you can talk about it, just this one thing, just this once, I… I want to know. I want to understand. If you don’t, or can’t, I understand. Your pain is far too high a price to pay for answers.” There was a long silence, then the sound of footsteps on concrete as Oliver came around the tables to sit beside her. 

“I’d really rather be looking you in the face when I tell you this,” he remarked after a moment when Felicity kept her gaze fixed on her hands resting in her lap. She took a deep breath and finally forced herself to meet his eyes, very nearly flinching away again when she saw the pain deep in their ocean colored depths.

“That’s better,” Oliver murmured, flashing her a reassuring smile, and began his story. “About a year after I was shipwrecked, I left the island. It doesn’t matter how or why, because I didn’t leave it for very long- another year later, I was working for a woman named Amanda Waller, and she sent me back there to infiltrate the operation a man named Baron Reiter was running there and figure out exactly what he was doing. Now, Reiter had a…particular method for dealing with dissent within the ranks. If one of his men brought forth accusations to him against another of their number, he’d have them carry out the punishment for the other’s wrongdoing rather than get his own hands dirty. Someone brought forth accusations against me, and that’s how I got those lash marks.” He fell silent, and for a while, Felicity just sat there in silence, studying him, watching pain and trauma play across his face. She felt terrible for asking him to relive that, even though she was aware that she’d given him an out, and she wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t know. She didn’t even know if she could. 

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said at last, reaching across the space between them and taking his hand in hers. “But thank you, for opening up and sharing it with me. I know how difficult it must have been for you.” Oliver nodded and squeezed her hand, a gentle, reassuring gesture that she immediately returned. She suspected that there was more to the story he’d just told her, but she wasn’t going to push him to share the rest of it. She knew that it had been hard enough for him to tell her what little he had, and if he’d wanted her to hear the whole story, he would have told her the whole story. She could- and would- be satisfied with what he had shared with her.


End file.
